The vehicle…

The vehicle, coming off of my last project, I was really confident I would do well with making a car. However, one thing I discovered is that vehicles are nothing like treasure chests.

My initial plan was to make a  1969 Dodge Charger, I really liked the design and I figured I’d have the know-how to pull it off. I quickly got to making the vehicle only to find once I had made the front, I just couldn’t grasp my head around the rest. I quickly scrapped the idea and went off to try my hand at something a bit more easier, a jeep. I was aided by my tutor at making a simple base I could work off of, and within a short amount of time I had made a very good looking front.

I had now added some whee  axis to it too, some headlights and a bumper bar. From this point I could now add on the more detailed parts like wheels, a steering wheel and seats. I wanted to however, try something a little different than a standard jeep. I decided I would add a tarp to the top of the jeep to give it a little bit of a challenge while making it look a little unique. After about four or so hours I had finally created a suitable top for my truck.

This was the final model before I began texturing. I had completed a tarp that fit onto the base model perfectly, I had created wheels and seats that all fit in without issues. This modelling was quite a challenge as the tarp was not easy to make, there was a lot of merging of vertices that caused problems at the UV unwrap stage. But in the end I was extremely satisfied with this.

These were my final wire frame and textured models. I had so much fun making this model. It taught me so much about maya and my capabilities. I was extremely proud of how far I have come from thirteen weeks ago when I was shaking in my boots.

I look forward to working in maya in the future!

Ricky.

Treasure chest!

Over the first six weeks of Trimester three in Animation, we were tasked with creating a treasure chest on Maya. I had never used maya before so I quickly got into using the program. After a few fails I began to understand the program and quickly began creating my chest. My first few attempts fell through, as I was not familiar with UV unwrapping. But once I had figured that out, I quickly began to optimize my next attempt to better suit unwrapping more easily. 

This was my first finished, box modeled chest. I was quite happy with it however once I put it through the UV unwrap it got a little difficult to unwrap properly due to how I modeled it initially. I used the multi cut tool, but did not actually use edge loops, so the loops were slightly bent and when it came to unwrapping, this caused many issues. Once I scrapped that one I quickly began on my final one. I used a cylinder and cut it in half, filling the hole that it left to form a chest lid, the base was easily done shortly after as seen below.

This was the final modeled chest I completed. I was extremely happy with the outcome and quickly dived into texturing. The unwrapping was simple due to the simplicity of the model, so I knew the texturing needed to make up for that. I knew how to use Photoshop so I quickly began texturing. I was quite satisfied with the outcome.

This is the final texture placed on the chest. I added some bump maps as well to give it some depth. I found this to be extremely enjoyable and fun, when seeing the bump map applied I felt completely and utterly fulfilled. Now that the chest had been completed, it was time to put it into the scene. We were given the assets for the scene (starfish, crabs, trees, sand and a skybox). I learnt how to apply keynotes to each object to give them their own movement throughout the scene. This part was also extremely enjoyable and I picked it up fast.

After duplicating coins to fill p the box, the scene was starting to come alive. My plan was to have the crab fall into the chest and send the coins flying. Once I keynoted everything it began to workout and blend in well!

The overall work of this project was quite satisfying. I had a whole lot of fun making the project and it gave me the knowledge to use maya for the next and more difficult project, a car!